A Conversation With Ryder Hesjedal After His Historic Victory in the Giro

A week after winning the 2012 Tour of Italy, Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Barracuda) sat down with Bicycling correspondent James Startt to reflect on his historic victory and his ambitions at the upcoming Tour de France.

Bicycling: Last week you became the first Canadian to win a Grand Tour. How's it feel to make history?

Ryder Hesjedal: Good! That's not why I do what I do, but it's definitely cool.

Bicycling: What was it like to put on the pink jersey in Milan?

Hesjedal: It was a huge relief—it was incredible. But it's also hard to describe. It's hard to describe everything you go through in a three-week tour like that. It's brutal. For the race to go as it did, and for us to ride as we did as a team, to make this a reality was just incredible. To pull it off, down to the final day, to the final seconds, it doesn't get any bigger than that.

Bicycling: Joaquim Rodríguez did the time trial of his life and in the end finished only 16 seconds behind you overall.

Hesjedal: Yeah, I knew it would be close. I was upset when I lost those 14 seconds the day before on the Stelvio; the race was that tight. And I'd much rather start the final time trial with 17 seconds to make up as opposed to 31. I knew it was not going be easy in any respect. I had the time trial of my life, too, and that's something that makes this victory sweeter.

Bicycling: When did you realize you could win the Giro?

Hesjedal: Well, that was really never in my mind. I was focusing on the next day. Every day I was trying to keep myself in it. Obviously I was aware every day of the situation as it unfolded, but I never fixated on a goal in the sense of "I can win" or "I can be podium." It was just executing every day and as I got closer. I still kept myself in that picture. It wasn't until we got through the two final mountain days that I said, "Well, I'm only 31 seconds down on Rodríguez and all we have is a time trial." That was the only time I said "I can win this race."

Bicycling: So it was after the Stelvio that you understood that victory was a real possibility?

Hesjedal: Yeah, I'd say so. I mean, it's always a possibility when we start the race, and I was never in a position where victory was no longer possible anymore. But I never woke up saying, "OK, I'm winning this Giro." I just woke up every day saying, "This is what I've got to do today to get to the next day." I had a plan each day, and when the day was done it would dictate what I needed to do the next day.

Bicycling: Greg LeMond once said that bicycle racing is more about reacting to others than acting out your own plans.

Hesjedal: Yeah, definitely; and I'm just proud that my team and myself were able to do that throughout this whole Giro.

Bicycling: You started out in mountain biking, and I'm wondering if there's anything that mountain biking gave you in particular that helped you win the Giro.

Hesjedal: I don't know if it's mountain biking in particular. I grew up mountain biking, but I trained as hard as the road cyclists and was probably just as strong. It was the road to where I am now; it's all part of your development. Mountain biking requires all the skills you need in a race like the Giro. What you need to get through a World Cup cross-country event requires a lot of the same tools that are needed in a race like the Giro—power, the ability to negotiate all different types of terrains, and so on.

Bicycling: You started out with some big road teams such as U.S. Postal, Discovery, and Phonak, but then in 2007 you signed with the smaller HealthNet squad in the U.S. Did you think perhaps then that you were closing the chapter on your European racing career, that maybe you would never race the big races again?

Hesjedal: No. Actually, that was a distinct choice as I had offers from other European teams in 2007. But I didn't want to be at the bottom of a new team again, and HealthNet gave me a good opportunity to ride as a leader. I knew that if I raced well in the Tour of California and Tour of Georgia and other top races in North America that I'd still be on the radar. I wanted to take control of my career and it gave me the chance to be a little closer to home.

It also gave me the opportunity to buy my house in Hawaii and go there and focus on the training that I needed to do. That move to race in the States that year was one of the best things I ever did. That's what helped me get to the Slipstream team and it worked out perfectly. I wouldn't change anything.